The Special Olympics Summer World Games culminated in Los Angeles, USA, on 2 August, where organisers welcomed over 6,500 athletes from 165 nations.
Although the boost to the economy is estimated at $415 million, this is not the sole highlight of the games. Special Olympics were keen to highlight the social impact of the event and the quadrennial celebration of the worldwide Special Olympics movement, which reached a record 4.5 million people across 170 nations in 2014.

The European Games, the latest continental multi-sport games to be added to the international sports calendar, took place in Baku, Azerbaijan from 12 to 28 June.
At a reported cost of $6.5 billion, Baku 2015 successfully hosted its ‘celebration of sport’, attracting at least 28,000 foreign visitors in the process.
Almost 6,000 athletes representing all 50 European national Olympic committees competed across 20 sports for 253 gold medals.

Data from recent Olympic Games and other multi-sport games indicate that the percentage of female athletes competing is rising, but that there is still work to be done to reach equal participation between the genders at multi-sport games.
Historical data from Sportcal’s events platform shows that the percentage of female participants remains at around the 40-per-cent mark in recent multi-sport games, with very few events coming close to breaking, or even reaching, the 50-per-cent barrier.

The Asian Games, the world’s largest continental multi-sports games event, will bring participant and media delegations comparable to a summer Olympic Games to the city of Incheon, South Korea, when it begins later this month on 19 September.
While total spectator attendance will fall significantly short of London’s totals, the Asian Games will attract around 10,000 athletes from the 45 national Olympic committees of Asia, just 1,000 fewer than London 2012.

The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, which begin tomorrow, are projected to cost almost $1 billion. Although inexpensive compared with the Olympics or the Fifa World Cup, the cost is substantial for a sporting event
While the Scottish government seeks to justify the spending with extensive reports focusing on a multi-faceted games legacy, not all stakeholders are convinced that the current model is sustainable. In response, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has declared that it is...